Fine Art Embroidery Techniques

Catherine Hicks is an embroidery artist who uses art history as a foil to explore the lives and work of significant artists by reinterpreting their work through a medium that undoubtedly precedes (but did not survive as easily) as mark making with pigment.

With a provocative wink, her work explores art history and contemporary culture through feminine - now feminist tools: needles, wire, and thread. With meditative stitches and hidden structure, she re-imagines flat planes of shadow with visual images that leap dimensionally toward the viewer with depth that is present and unabashedly real.

Using techniques adapted from her painting practice and extensive study of Art History, Catherine will demonstrate her method of embroidering skin that looks less like needlework and more like oil or pastel paintings. Highlighting three different embroidery techniques, this discussion will reveal how to use needle and fiber to create skin like Van Gogh, Lichtenstein and Kahlo, and how to embroider faces with confidence using the easiest stitches imaginable. With materials you probably already have in your stash, Catherine will get you started with tips and techniques that will have you stitching faces and bodies that are expressive, engaging and artistic.